In the News

Daniel Benjamin, Director of the Dickey Center, answered questions from CNN and PBS this month about the expansion of ISIS.

Prior to the July 4th holiday, Benjamin was asked by the PBS Newshour about the threat in the US from ISIS. He confirmed there had been an alert to authorities to be vigilant, but they "have no credible intelligence on plotting by ISIS in particular in the US." But there is a greater concern because of the "lone wolf" attacks that have occurred, he said.

In May 2015, as Secretary of State John Kerry was marking the beginning of the U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council, 17 junior scholars and established experts from the eight Arctic countries, including Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, gathered in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada for their first official meeting as participants of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative.

Institute of Arctic Studies Director and environmental studies professor Ross Virginia leads the Fulbright Arctic Initiative with Mike Sfraga, Vice Chancellor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For 18 months, the Fulbright Arctic Scholars will be working with governments, NGOs, businesses, and Arctic communities to research innovative solutions to impacts of climate change in the Arctic, particularly on the issues of water, energy, health, and infrastructure.

Dickey Center Director Daniel Benjamin has been interviewed by numerous media outlets since the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a trove of files seized during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A sampling follows:

"He was still very much focused on the notion of driving the U.S. out of the Middle East and broader Muslim world through a catastrophic attack," Benjamin said. "He kept telling people to attack US embassies."

Bin Laden “was a bit of an international relations policy wonk,” said Daniel Benjamin. The Al Qaeda leader's papers “suggest he was smart enough to be interested in how his enemy thought and functioned.”

From May 17-21, 2015, Fulbright Canada hosted the inaugural meeting of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Dartmouth environmental studies professor Ross Virginia, Co-lead for the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, and Melody Brown Burkins, Associate Director for Student Programs and Research at the Dickey Center, took part in the meetings.

The Fulbright Arctic Initiative, launched in April in Ottawa, aims to stimulate international collaboration on Arctic issues by bringing together 17 scholars from the eight Arctic Council countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US). The researchers are meeting in Iqaluit to share their research and work on plans for future collaboration.

Using a novel, helicopter-borne sensor to penetrate the surface of large swathes of terrain, a team of researchers, including Ross Virginia, Director of Dartmouth's Institute of Arctic Studies at the Dickey Center and Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has gathered compelling evidence that beneath Antarctica's ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys lies a salty aquifer that may support previously unknown microbial ecosystems and retain evidence of ancient climate change, stated a press release from NSF.

The Division of Polar Programs in NSF's Geoscience's Directorate supported the AEM sensor project through a collaborative award to Mikucki, Tulaczyk and Virginia.

In an article for Dartmouth Now, Kenneth Bauer, program manager of human development initiatives at the Dickey Center, stressed the importance of working with established humanitarian organizations with a presence in Nepal as a way to help Nepal following a devastating earthquake and ongoing aftershocks. Bauer and others are concerned that relief efforts reach the remote villages cut off from Kathmandu.

“Traveling in Nepal for 26 years now, there has always been this dichotomy between Kathmandu, the capital, and the rest of Nepal,” Bauer says to Dartmouth Now. “One of the things we’re very concerned about and trying to think strategically about is how it’s helpful to get to villages and rural communities, and what does their future look like in terms of rebuilding.”

The community is invited to a 6 p.m. meeting in Silsby Hall, room 317, to continue discussion of how the College community can help with relief efforts in Nepal.

The Ledyard Canoe Club is the lead sponsor of the “Dartmouth Explorers Symposium: Adventure, Learning, and Leadership on the World’s Rivers and Oceans,” from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in 105 Dartmouth Hall, April 24, 2015. The event will feature Dartmouth (and Ledyard) alumni who have been part of historic journeys, from the first descent of Tibet’s Tsangpo River in 2002, to the 1964 National Geographic Danube and Sea of Japan expeditions.

The symposium was organized by Dan Reicher '78, a member of the Dickey Center Board of Visitors, and Esteban Castano '14, a former Louis J. Setti International Intern at the Dickey Center. Esteban also was instrumental is creating a series of videos for the Dickey Center about traveling abroad.

Dartmouth undergraduate Diana Wise ’15 spent two weeks of her winter break in the dramatic domain of Antarctica, an experience she captured in a blog, “Gone South For the Winter,” which she filed from the field.

“Diana participated in the field portion of a multi-university Antarctica study abroad program that Environmental Studies and the Institute of Arctic Studies are supporting this year for the first time,” says Lee McDavid, the program manager at the Institute of Arctic Studies at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. “Diana is the first student to enroll in this program, a unique opportunity, given that most students conducting field work in Antarctica tend to be graduate students.”

Kerri-Ann Jones, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs, spoke on January 13, 2015, about the process of negotiating international environmental and climate issues to 120 students, faculty, and community members.

Dean of the Faculty Michael Mastanduno developed the manuscript review program when he was director of the Dickey Center from 1997 to 2003. It was so popular, says Colleen Boggs, director of the Leslie Center, that the Dickey Center began to collaborate with them to help faculty with humanities projects. The Dickey Center program focuses on manuscripts with an international scope.